Hop"per (?), n. [See 1st Hop.]
1.
One who, or that which, hops.
2.
A chute, box, or receptacle, usually funnel-shaped with an opening at the lower part, for delivering or feeding any material, as to a machine; as, the wooden box with its trough through which grain passes into a mill by joining or shaking, or a funnel through which fuel passes into a furnace, or coal, etc., into a car.
3. Mus.
See Grasshopper, 2.
4. pl.
A game. See Hopscotch.
Johnson.
5. Zool. (a)
See Grasshopper, and Frog hopper, Grape hopper, Leaf hopper, Tree hopper, under Frog, Grape, Leaf, and Tree.
(b)
The larva of a cheese fly.
6. Naut.
A vessel for carrying waste, garbage, etc., out to sea, so constructed as to discharge its load by a mechanical contrivance; -- called also dumping scow.
Bell and hopper Metal., the apparatus at the top of a blast furnace, through which the charge is introduced, while the gases are retained. -- Hopper boy, a rake in a mill, moving in a circle to spread meal for drying, and to draw it over an opening in the floor, through which it falls. -- Hopper closet, a water-closet, without a movable pan, in which the receptacle is a funnel standing on a draintrap. -- Hopper cock, a faucet or valve for flushing the hopper of a water-closet.
© Webster 1913.